'Patty Red Pants' comes to BPP

Faced with a murder of a young girl in the nearby woods, two women are jolted into a roller coaster-ride trip through their memories of growing up in suburban America in playwright Trista Baldwin's "Patty Red Pants." The play will premiere 8 p.m. Friday in the Bloomington Playwrights Project's Timothy J. Wiles Stage.\nAwarded the title of Best Off-Off Broadway Show by Show Business Weekly, "Patty Red Pants" will play for the next three weekends, 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday, until May 23. \nBaldwin twisted the tale of Little Red Riding Hood into her script, which explores sexual awakening in suburban life. Director Amanda Renee Baker, who also directed "The Flies" and "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" at the John Waldron Arts Center, said she decided to take on this play because she enjoyed Baldwin's dark writing.\n"On the surface it looks like a really simple analogy," Baker said. "But when you look deeper into the language and the way she handles the relationships between the characters, it's a lot more complex." \nThroughout the script, Patty, played by freshman Julia Weiss, has flashbacks to her childhood. Patty's best friend Becky, played by freshman Emily Goodson, accompanies her through an internal journey to the past. Becky was sexually abused as a child and the play grapples with how the abuse affected her emotional development.\n"The play is kind of about memory and how traumatic experience affects the way you remember things," Goodson said.\nGoodson said acting in the production was exciting because the same actresses play the Patty and Becky characters throughout the entire play despite continuous shifts in Patty and Becky's age. Goodson and Weiss have to quickly transform themselves from age 26 to age 13 while on stage. \n"I like the way it's not in chronological order," Goodson said. "The writer gives a lot of room to interpret it. It doesn't come in one neat package."\nJunior Todd Aiello also must transform himself to play multiple roles. He plays every man in Patty and Becky's lives. Aiello said he played every male role because each man in the play is represented as the prototypical male. While Aiello said he found the multiple roles challenging, he enjoyed the experience.\n"It was a lot of fun to try different characters and to try to make them distinct," Aiello said.\nOne of Aiello's characters is 15 year old Jeremy, Becky's high school sweetheart who harbors feelings for Patty.\n"(Jeremy's mixed feelings) are kind of the source of tension in the play," Aiello said.\nStage Manager Jeremy Wilson said because of the show's sexual subject matter it is a bit racier than most of Bloomington Playwright Project's prime time shows. \n"All of our plays tend to be somewhat edgy, but just because of the subject matter this one tends to be a little bit edgier," Wilson said. "It's still a very good quality show." \nTickets for "Patty Red Pants" are $15 general admission or $12 for students and seniors. Reservations for seats can be made by calling Bloomington Playwrights Project at 355-9001.\n-- Contact Arts Editor Jenica Schultz at jwschult@indiana.edu.